The relationship between phonological awareness and reading ability

by Lo, Ho-chun

"The Relationship Between Phonological Awareness and Reading Ability" Submitted by

Lo Ho Chun Rebecca

for the degree of Master of Arts at The University of Hong Kong. in June 2003

The present study focuses on the role of phonological awareness in second language reading. Forty-one Grade 8 Hong Kong students participated in the study. They were all native speakers of Cantonese. Three types of standardised reading measures were used as criterion variables: Word Reading subtest of WRAT-3, Word Identification and Word Attack subtests of WRMT-R. A comprehensive battery of tests including both phonological processing and visual processing skills was administered. Data were analysed using Pearson correlations and hierarchical multiple regression.

Phonological awareness tasks were found to be more strongly related to reading ability. The study suggests that phoneme deletion, among other tasks, proved to be the most powerful predictor of reading ability. In contrast, visual processing was not significantly correlated with any of the reading measures. It was reported that this study replicated the findings of other L 1 reading research in the same area.

The results supported the notion that individual differences in reading ability are caused by variation in phonological processing abilities. Early intervention may be required once the students are identified as deficient in phonological awareness. It is finally suggested that more explicit instruction/training in phonological awareness is necessary so that a phonological route is available to students when they encounter new words.